Two seconds. That was how long it took before Wyn’s mind clamped down on his panic. It was an eternity, but in the chaos immediately following the emergence of the tendrils, there was nothing to capitalize on his weakness. He flared his spirit fire, letting it engulf him like an inferno as the world seemed to slow around him, entering a heightened state of concentration.
Two drakes on the strider, six more in the grass. We can kill them one on one, even two on one, but this is too many, and they can lunge out of the grass. Tendrils on all sides, like a cage, and more are popping up each second. Those must be from the rootlurker, so it isn’t dead then. It’s not attacking us though, it’s indiscriminate, and only attacking stuff that enters its range. Shit. Think Wyn, what can you do?
The first step was obvious, they had to get the drakes off the strider, they needed a moment to take action.
Corrin seemed to come to the same realization, lunging towards the drakes, both of which were still startled after the rootlurker’s attack. They yelped in panic and jumped back away from the edge of the blades, Corrin left a thin cut on one of their faces, but that was it. They’d bought a brief reprieve, but once the grass drakes regrouped, they’d attack again.
“Any ideas?” he asked, not looking towards Wyn.
“I’m working on it.” Wyn said, “You?”
“Maybe a little something. Hey, Ven! Any advice for this situation?”
Ven laughed gravely. “Advice? That is a rootlurker, and it is apparently still alive. I have only heard one tale of a group surviving one’s rampage, and they were escorted by one of the best adventuring teams in Precipice.”
“Well, then we get to be the second,” Corrin said. “There’s no chance I’m dying today. Head that way and I’ll get us out of here!” He pointed to the right, towards a tentacle near them, shorter than the rest.
“What?” Wyn, Ven, and Kei all exclaimed at once. Getting so close to one of the large tendrils would be suicide, of that there was no doubt.
“Even if we wouldn’t be killed by the tendril, it is impossible,” Ven shook his head. “There is a patch of grassward there, we must choose a different direction.”
Wyn looked over. To the left of the enormous limb was a large sward of different-colored grass, a bit greener than the rest, vines stretched back and forth between the blades of grass, creating a webbing that would entrap anything that entered. He looked back to Corrin–he wanted them to head towards the danger? Corrin looked back at him, and their eyes met for a second.
Of course.
Even if they defeated the grass drakes, staying in this ring of monsters would be a death sentence, and more tentacles were erupting from the grass with each passing moment. They were far more dangerous than the drakes, which meant their objective would be to escape the rootlurker first, then deal with the drakes together. This was how Corrin liked to solve his problems–head on.
“Captain, head for the tendril,” Wyn said.
“But–”
“Go to the right, avoid the grassward. Corrin and I will handle the rest.”
Ven hesitated once more, but then his hand clasped the metal guiding rod firmly and his gaze hardened and he took a breath. “Win us luck’s favor checo.”
Corrin grinned, “Of course. She’s obsessed with me after all.” He worked quickly, reaching into one of the packs as the veldstrider lurched to the right, taking them towards the edge of the tendril-cage. Wyn watched the back and saw the change spur the drakes back into action. They began to approach again, however warily.
A ringing boom echoed from behind Wyn and he turned briefly to see smoke coming from the surface of the tendril as it thrashed more aggressively. Thankfully they were still out of its range, it seemed the explosion hadn’t done much damage.
“Did you just–?"
Corrin grimaced. “Yeah, I was hoping that would work. Oh well, plan B is more fun anyways.”
“And what is plan B?” Wyn didn’t like the look in his friend’s eye.
“Remember the leviathan?” Corrin stretched his legs.
What did–? Oh. “You can’t be serious. Can you even make that?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
Wyn doubted that somehow, but if Corrin said he could do it, then he’d trust him. He glanced back towards the grass behind them, then ahead to the tentacle, and the discolored grass to its left. A plan began to form in his mind.
“Ven! Are the drakes affected by grassward?”
“Yes, they are!” The captain called back.
Corrin raised an eyebrow. “You got something too?”
Wyn didn’t say a word, he grabbed a rope off the side of the strider, several hundred feet worth and tied it to his friend’s waist, then he tied the other end to himself. “This will make sense in a second. Just wait to detonate until you know what I mean by that.”
“Got it,” Corrin nodded. There wasn’t need for doubt between the two of them.
Wyn, they’re coming back! Eia shouted in his head. Only a few seconds then.
Wyn drew his sword again, preparing for the drake that was about to jump from the grass. It leapt, and he brought the blade up to meet it. “Go!”
***
Corrin was calm. The panic–no, it was excitement–was contained in his right hand, and his mind was still.
Wyn was behind him yelling, but Corrin couldn’t hear a thing. Ever since their fight, he’d been thinking about the punch that had put Wyn through the wall. That explosion of force, that power. He’d only done it twice, first when fighting Din Kai, and then again during their fight.
Remember that feeling. Remember it.
He let the mana swirl around in his legs, crackling like a tempest as it grew in intensity. The secret to the punch wasn’t just about the amount of mana though, it was about timing. The mana didn’t like to stay still, and it resisted gathering in one place.
He took a step back, towards the back of the strider, he needed room. Ahead, the tendril of the rootlurker loomed–it was large, true, and likely more dangerous, but the rootlurker didn’t strike him with the same fear as the leviathan, it didn’t have the same aura of death around it. This was just a beast, and one he wasn't about to let stop him. While the top of the appendage whipped back and forth dangerously, the base was relatively immobile. Still, his timing would have to be perfect.
He shot forwards, one step, two, three, then he was out of room.
Remember!
His muscles tightened, fibers straining as his knees bent just slightly in preparation. Mana surged into his leg, more than he could actually hold there. It wanted to flow back out into the rest of his body, but before it could, Corrin demanded its use. The peak of mana in his legs synced with the moment of the jump itself. The pressure built in an instant; then it erupted.
He shot off the back of the veldstrider in a blur, his body streaking through the air like an arrow. Corrin felt the rush of wind, and a rush of exhilaration flooded his body. He screamed, a mixture of laughter and joy. “Hell yeah!”
He reached the apex of his jump and began to fall, but the tendril was fast approaching. Corrin drew his sword back and stabbed it into the limb, slamming into it at the same time as he slid down it a good twenty feet. The mana in his body was drained, so the impact stunned him for a moment, but he sucked in more power and held on with shaking fingers, leaving him dangling above the grass.
After a brief collection, he drew the dagger from his belt, a little over a foot long, he drove it into the flesh and then pulled his sword out of the wound. No blood came gushing out with it, instead, a yellowish sap leaked out slowly, thick and viscous. He pulled himself higher with his one arm and then stabbed the sword back in. He needed to get high enough to jump back to the strider. Finally, he reached the point he wanted, and stopped. He pulled his sword out and sheathed it, reaching for the firestones which hung from his belt, sealed in their protective pouch.
Then, Wyn’s voice reached his ears, shouted from the back of the saddle, as loud as he could. “Higher Corrin! Climb higher!”
Climb higher? Why would I do that? We don’t get anything out of that, and it’ll just make me take longer getting back to fight the drakes.
The drakes…
Corrin looked at the rope dangling from him to the strider, where it was tied similarly around Wyn. His head drifted next to the grassward on the other side of the tendril. If the strider kept moving in the direction it was headed, the grassward would be on one side, and the strider the other, with the tendril, and Corrin in the middle.
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Corrin laughed, “You crazy bastard!” Then, he started to climb again. His arms burned from the effort as he plunged the sword and dagger back into its flesh. But he kept going, ascending the side of the tendril as quickly as he could. It was a saving grace that there was no blood in the limb to weaken his grip, the sap didn’t flow quick enough to ever reach his hands. There was no room to be lazy, no time to look back and see how the battle on the strider was going, he just had to trust Wyn would be fine.
Higher, higher. His arms wanted to give out, his mana wasn’t good for extended use like this. It was better in short bursts, he had to climb with mostly his own strength. Still, he kept going, just a little more…
He made it, this would be high enough. He shoved his sword as deep as he could, soaking his arm in the sticky sap as he reached deep into its flesh. With his other arm he grabbed the rope, looping it around his arm to remove the slack. Next came the hard part. “Wyn! Go now!” He shouted, finally turning back to the battle on the strider. Wyn was fending off two of the monsters, but he seemed to get the signal. It was up to him now.
***
“Wyn! Go now!” Wyn heard the shout come from high above the sea. He couldn’t look. If he took his eyes off the drakes now, they’d kill him in an instant. But he got the message, he just needed to get these two off the strider. Any second now, it would enter the striking range of the tendril. If that happened before they could enact their plan, they were dead.
Blood ran down his arm where one of the beast’s claws had slashed him, and his grip on his sword was weak. He’d only managed to kill one in the time Corrin had been gone. These ones he didn’t have to kill though, he just needed to get them off the saddle. He looped the loose rope around his left arm, letting it coil up its length; he had to remove almost all the slack.
Against wild beasts, if you had to fight, you had to be decisive, aggressive. Predators weren’t generally used to prey that didn’t try to run, and animals would avoid injuries when they could. It seemed that held true for grass drakes as well. When the injured, bleeding swordsman let out a guttural yell and charged, they hesitated for a brief moment.
An arrow pierced the eye of the one on the left, and Ven shouted from behind Wyn. “Take that you ugly vasitas!”
The drake howled in pain, and Wyn slammed his rope-wrapped arm into its face. It bit down, but the rope prevented its jaw from closing, and it couldn’t pierce his skin. His sword slashed across the other beast, but he received a claw across his chest in return. Still, all three stumbled off the back of the strider, and as he did, Wyn kicked off the shell, putting as much distance between him and the tendril as possible. Then the grass engulfed him.
Wyn! Eia’s voice called out desperately, mixing with Kei’s scream back on the saddle.
But this was exactly what he’d wanted. For an instant, he came face to face with a grass drake as it perched on three blades of grass it had pulled together with its arms and tail. The creature's green eyes gleamed in the shade of the sea, dangerous and predatory. Then, Wyn was gone.
The slack in the rope reached its limit, and he began to swing towards the tendril under the sea. The grass drakes gave chase, the sea was their territory. In it, he would be an even easier target than those above on the veldstrider. They trailed him as he plowed through the countless blades of grass in his way, hurtling towards his destination at the end of the pendulum he and Corrin had created.
The grass tore at him, but he held onto the rope as best he could, not trusting the loop around his waist. The rope held, and as he passed the shadow of the giant tendril to his right, he felt himself begin to travel back up the arc. The force wasn’t quite natural, and he knew Corrin was pulling from above as hard as he could to help Wyn reach the patch of grassward. In the thick of the sea, he couldn’t see the color change until he was in it, and he flew up into the thick webbing of vines he’d seen before, trapping him like a net catching a fish.
It hadn’t been visible from above, but below the surface, the blue haze he recognized hung thickly in the air, and as he breathed it in his nose was filled with its faintly sweet aroma. The jungle of vines was dark, filling the empty space between blades with densely crowded greenage. Trapped up in the vines were the bodies of other creatures that had fallen prey to their poison. Above him a small group of leapers were entangled on the vines, unmoving either from sleep or death.
He heard another cracking boom from above as the firestones Corrin had shoved into the tendril exploded and the rope grew slack again. Thankfully, the vines of the grassward provided enough support for him to hang from as he’d expected, and he dangled there waiting for the drakes to strike. This was the part he feared most. If the poison didn’t act quickly enough, he was dead.
One lunged from the direction he’d come, but its charge was slower, and he was able to awkwardly drop down into a lower patch of the vines, avoiding the attack as the beast crashed into another net and slowly grew limp. Wyn tried to move before the next attack, but moving through the web was almost impossible, and his legs or arms got caught every few seconds.
The grass drakes kept coming, too frenzied to notice the threat lurking in the grass. They scored several shallow slashes on him, some crashed into him and sent him tumbling through layers of the webbing. But the poison was strong, and the jumbled mess of bodies and vines made moving difficult even for them. Soon they moved too lethargically to continue the assault. By the time the last attacker fell still, he counted five bodies trapped in the grassward with him.
That meant there were likely two left outside the sward, but if they attacked, Wyn had no doubt Corrin could manage them. He let his body relax as he lay in the net. It was uncomfortable–the way he half-dangled across the thick vines–but he made the most of it, waiting for a signal of some kind.
After a minute or so, he began to feel a faint weight press against him, like he was holding a moderately heavy rock. Except there was no physical feeling to it, the weight was somehow mental. It was an odd sensation, and one he shouldn’t have felt through the spirit fire. Still, it didn’t feel dangerous, and he couldn’t be bothered to think about it just then.
Wyn? Are you okay? Eia asked through their bond. I can tell you’re alive but…
I’m fine, don't worry, he replied. He pulled out his knife and began cutting the vines, trying to clear a path for the rope to pull him out. Just let me know what’s going on up there okay?
***
Ven watched in horror as the young boy, Wyn, fell off Siensa’s back, taking the two grass drakes with him. The bow in his hands dropped to the saddle as he ran over to look, praying he’d managed to hang onto the shell somehow. Of course, he hadn’t, and as Ven looked, the edge of the shell was empty. Wyn had been taken by the sea.
Besides him, Kei fell to her knees, muttering with tears in her eyes. “No no no…”
Before he could even process what had happened however, a shape moved in the grass. Ven was no warrior, but he was still one of the most successful captains on The Grass Sea. It wouldn’t have been able to reach such a position without some degree of training in combat, and he’d played host to plenty of adventuring groups over the years. That experience was the only thing that saved him as the grass drake lunged, and he tackled Kei down, the claws raking across his back.
The drake came to a stop on the front side of the saddle, turning to look at the two of them, its sickle claw dripping with his blood. Siensa had never stopped moving since he gave her the command, and as she drew closer, he saw the tendril to their left rear back, preparing to whip towards them as they entered its range. The grass drake took a step forward, and Ven knew the end had come.
In the tendril, he saw a vision from the past–his home trampled under the body of a creature far larger than this–and he felt the hand of fate on his shoulder. He had been lucky once, but not again. The irony of the universe was too much sometimes, and so at the end of his life, Ven smiled.
The vision was blown away in a flash of heat and light. A shockwave rolled through his body, followed moments later by pressure waves that broke gently against his skin.
A faint scream grew louder, and just after the explosion, a boy with white hair plunged into the back of the grass drake. In the moment of impact, he drove his sword into its body and rolled off the top, trying to break the force of his fall as best he could. He rolled forward and tumbled with enough momentum that he almost went off the back of the saddle and fell into the sea, but Ven and Kei were in his way, so instead he crashed against them painfully.
Corrin groaned loudly. “Ow ow ow... Did I get him?”
Ven glanced at the body of the grass drake across the saddle. It was very dead, the sword still sticking out of its neck. “You–”
The half-burned flesh of the rootlurker’s tendril fell from the sky like rain after the explosion, and though there was no blood, there was some sort of odd sap as chunks landed and bounced off of Siensa with a wet squelching sound. The ground shook again as the rootlurker reacted to the explosion itself.
Ven looked up, the rootlurker’s tendril was gone, at least from the point where Corrin had been, and though the rest of the tendrils still thrashed, the one nearest them began to sink back into the grass, retreating.
Due to his position laying on the ground, Ven didn’t see the next grass drake jump until it was too late. The creature came from the side, leaping onto the saddle, except it landed on its packmate’s body and almost fell as it did.
“I really hope this is the last one…” Corrin grumbled. He got to his feet shakily as Ven looked up from the ground. Though he knew the boy was on the short side, in that moment, his battered figure loomed larger than Ven could’ve imagined.
Corrin stared at the grass drake. His sword was still embedded in the previous corpse, and he drew a dagger from his belt, not nearly a large enough weapon to take on such a threat.
For a moment, neither party moved. Then, the drake turned with a faint whimper, and jumped back into the sea.
“That’s right… Run away… You little wuss.” Corrin panted before collapsing back onto the saddle. He lay there silently for a second before speaking again. “Hey, could you guys pull Wyn back up? I’m a bit tired right now.”
Ven grimaced. “I’m sorry. Wyn is no longer…” Wait–pull him back up? Only then did Ven notice the rope tied around Corrin’s waist. It trailed off the saddle and into the sea, heading to the left where it disappeared into the grass.
That’s impossible…
Ven found himself at a loss for words. He slowly got to his feet, offering the young lady beside him his hand. She took it and stood as well, looking down at the boy with white hair on his saddle. His chest rose and fell slowly as he slept, having passed out.
There were other adventuring groups that perhaps could have gotten them out of that situation, he had worked with the best on the sea. But those groups had been on the sea for years themselves. They knew the threats grass drakes posed, they’d fought them many times. They had mages, channelers, not to mention minor artifacts. And none were as young as the two boys with him on this trip.
Kei moved before Ven did, and he felt some surprise at that. She turned to Ven, and though her eyes were red, her face was etched with relief. “Well? We have to help him.”
Finally, Ven was able to move again. As Siensa brought them as close to the grassward as Ven dared get, they managed to push the grass drake’s body off the saddle. Then they pulled the other boy out of the deadly vines from a distance, dragging his slumped body over the lip of the saddle. He was covered in wounds, but he had a satisfied smile on his face. His eyes seemed to glow faintly purple as he looked over at his friend across the saddle. Was the poison immunity he'd described before truly so strong?
“Oh come on, no fair. I wanted to nap first. Kei, can you help me bandage myself up?” He sat up, leaning against the edge of the saddle as he peeled the blood-soaked, hole-ridden clothes off of his body and tossed them aside. Kei, blushing, started helping him wrap his wounds a moment later.
The boy–Wyn, looked at Ven, who was standing in shock. He clenched his fist in front of him. “Nice shot, it saved our asses. Now get us out of here. I’ll stay on watch while Corrin gets his beauty sleep.”
Even after all that, Wyn was staying on guard as they made their escape. How could he even remain conscious with those injuries?
Ven nodded absently and drifted to the front of the saddle, grabbing the guiding rod with weak fingers. As he tapped a different beat, he glanced back at the two warriors he’d been tasked with transporting. They were injured, covered in both sap and blood, but Ven had seen one leap fearlessly into the sea of death, and had heard the other laugh as he attacked a creature most would do anything to avoid.
It seemed his day had been filled with even more monsters than he’d realized.